- Member of Parliament
- Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs
- Liberal
- Beauséjour
- New Brunswick
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $117,680.95
- Government Page
- Apr/30/24 3:02:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague for the question. As she is well aware, the government fully supports a buy-back program for military-style firearms. However, I do not share her pessimism about the next federal election.
The good news is that we are already working to develop a buy-back program that will be in place this year and next. We made a commitment to buy back those firearms, and that is exactly what we are going to do.
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- Mar/20/24 4:16:53 p.m.
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C‑65, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act.
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- May/15/23 2:29:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what our government is going to do.
We will ensure that the public interest is always protected. Our government has taken concrete action to counter foreign interference in our democratic institutions.
I share my hon. colleague's concerns about the need to ensure that byelections will, like the 2019 and 2021 elections, be protected from foreign interference. We have put measures in place and we will continue to strictly enforce them.
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- May/8/23 2:58:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague knows full well that we will make the necessary decisions at the right time.
It is also important to remember that we are the only government that has taken the threat of foreign interference seriously. We put in place measures and strengthened them for the 2021 election.
We are obviously concerned about the situation of our colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills. That is exactly why we gave intelligence agencies further instructions.
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- May/4/23 3:11:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona and I share a number of objectives that he and I have discussed on numerous occasions in terms of increasing the ability of Canadians to access voting, ensuring, for example, that campus voting is prioritized by Elections Canada. We are always looking at ways to ensure that our electoral system is accessible and is reflective of the choices Canadians make in their governments.
I will continue to work with my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona and others in ensuring that we have the best electoral system that we could possibly have.
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- Mar/21/23 2:49:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is fully aware that our government has taken the threat of foreign interference seriously from the very beginning. That is why we put in place a series of measures that enabled a panel of senior officials chaired by the Clerk of the Privy Council to confirm that the 2019 and 2021 elections were indeed free and democratic.
We have strengthened the measures already in place. Mr. Johnston will provide an analysis and make recommendations if there are other measures we can implement to continue to ensure that there is no foreign interference in our elections.
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- Mar/21/23 2:41:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague knows very well that we did not ignore these warnings. The former Conservative government ignored them when it was in power. We did the opposite. We put in place a suite of measures to strengthen our democratic institutions and to share intelligence vital to national security with parliamentarians.
We have a panel of independent experts chaired by the Clerk of the Privy Council that certified that the 2019 and 2021 elections were free and democratic. The good news is that we will continue to strengthen these measures.
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- Mar/20/23 2:46:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc is obviously trying to make us believe that it is serious about protecting our institutions, but let us take a look at its record.
When measures were put in place to protect our elections, the Bloc voted against them. When we took steps to prevent foreign money from influencing our elections, the Bloc voted against them. When it came to strengthening the integrity of our voter lists, the Bloc voted against that too.
We take the job of protecting our democratic institutions very seriously. We will continue to do whatever it takes to strengthen and protect them, and we would appreciate the Bloc's help, for once.
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- Mar/7/23 2:35:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was very clear yesterday.
Since taking office, we have implemented robust, concrete measures to counter foreign interference in our elections. We also asked a special rapporteur to go over all these issues and, transparently, give the government recommendations for next steps. We will keep doing what needs to be done to reassure Canadians that our elections are free and democratic and that all members of Parliament were 100% elected by Canadians.
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- Mar/7/23 2:26:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, we have reassured Canadians quite a bit about the importance of countering foreign interference in elections. That is something my colleague cannot say.
He talked about a 10-year period. However, 13 years ago, intelligence agencies raised the importance of countering foreign interference in elections. At that time, my colleague was the minister responsible for democratic institutions and he did nothing.
That is the opposite of our government's record, and we will continue to do the right thing.
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- Mar/6/23 2:43:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my hon. colleague that we must work together to do whatever it takes to safeguard elections in Canada and our democratic institutions.
I have good news for him: That is exactly what our government has been doing since we came to power. We are always looking for advice on how to strengthen the robust measures that are already in place.
We will continue to do whatever it takes because we agree with my colleague that this interference is completely unacceptable.
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- Mar/6/23 2:41:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said a few moments ago, since we formed government, we have acknowledged the threats of foreign interference in our democratic system, in our democratic institutions. That is why we amended the Canada Elections Act to prevent foreign contributions to our election campaigns. That is why we passed legislation, a bill, to create a committee in charge of overseeing the national security agencies, with representatives from all parties, including the Bloc Québécois, and we referred this important matter to those members.
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- Mar/6/23 2:31:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our government is taking the issue of foreign interference in Canada's democratic institutions very seriously. As my colleague heard, our government has taken unprecedented steps since we formed the government in 2015 to put in place a series of measures precisely to provide greater transparency and understanding to Canadians on a threat that has existed for well more than 13 years, which has been publicly discussed for over a decade.
The good news is that our government takes it seriously. The good news is that the 2019 and 2021 elections were decided freely and fairly by Canadians.
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- Mar/6/23 2:30:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe that our government has been very transparent about our efforts to counter foreign interference in our elections and our democratic system.
We look forward to working with all parliamentarians in the House of Commons and the Senate. That is exactly why we created, for example, a parliamentary committee to study these and other issues and to report to Canadians. We created intelligence review agencies to effectively ensure that our democratic institutions are protected, and we continue to look for other solutions at the same time.
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- Mar/6/23 2:28:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my hon. colleague that this should be a non-partisan issue, because we all have an interest in protecting and strengthening our democratic institutions.
Our government has introduced a series of robust measures that were assessed by independent experts following the last two federal elections. The good news is that we are always looking for additional measures that we can bring in with the support, I hope, of all parliamentarians in order to strengthen our democratic system.
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- Mar/6/23 2:23:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we take the issue of foreign interference in Canada's electoral system, any foreign interference, very seriously.
That is why when we formed government, we took a number of unprecedented steps that did not exist when my friend was a minister in the previous government. We created the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians precisely so that parliamentarians from all political parties could have access to classified information and published reports for Canadians. We set up an independent panel of senior public servants to follow exactly the issue of foreign interference in the elections, and we will continue to do more.
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- Mar/6/23 2:21:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it will come as no surprise to you that I disagree with the opposition leader's false claims that the government did nothing. As soon as we came to power, we took action against foreign interference in our elections. Ours is the only government ever to have done so.
When my friend, the opposition leader, was the minister responsible for democratic institutions, he did nothing when intelligence agencies raised the issue over 10 years ago.
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- Dec/5/22 2:45:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said several times, and as the Minister of Public Safety and the Prime Minister also said, we take the threat of foreign interference very seriously.
Obviously, we are on the job to protect the democratic institutions that are so important for Canada. The good news is that that is exactly what our government did.
Despite all the efforts of the conspiracy theorists opposite, I can assure the House that Canada's election was free and open and that the results are completely reliable.
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- Dec/5/22 2:44:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been very transparent, as have all ministers in the government. Before the Conservatives were even interested in the real threat that foreign interference presents, the government took action. We took action in 2019. We renewed that action in 2021. We had a group of experts chaired by the Clerk of the Privy Council to examine these issues and assure Canadians that the election integrity was preserved.
We take this threat seriously and we are on the job.
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- Nov/29/22 2:46:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is an experienced member of the House and he sat in cabinet. He would know that ministers do not answer questions on details of specific police investigations in the House of Commons. What governments do is put in place the appropriate processes to ensure that our democratic institutions are protected from foreign interference, a concern that all members of the House share.
As my colleagues have pointed out, we took steps that previous Conservative governments did not think they should take to put in place the appropriate mechanisms to ensure the integrity of our elections, and that is exactly what we did.
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